How do you genuinely feel equal to men while recognizing that patriarchy gives them structural power you don’t have?
Posted: Fri Aug 21, 2026 9:28 am
I’ve been trying to work through something that I’ve realized goes much deeper than jealousy, sexual insecurity, or comparison.
I grew up internalizing a hierarchy where men were positioned as sexually superior to me. Some of that came from broader cultural patriarchal messages, but some of it was reinforced through my actual relationships and experiences with men. I experienced control over my sexuality by my father growing up, and throughout my life I’ve had men pressure me, violate sexual boundaries, or make sexual decisions involving my body that I didn’t consent to. I’ve also had men invalidate sexual experiences I had that didn’t involve PIV and treat PIV as the thing that made someone legitimately sexually experienced, even though it didn’t do much for me. And men reinforced the idea that my queerness was foul and not legitimate.
I think I responded to all of that by trying to reverse the hierarchy rather than dismantling it within me. So sexual experience became power to me. Being desired became power. Having more partners became power. Being able to replace someone quickly after rejection became power. Having experiences other men hadn’t had became power. At times I deliberately used my sexuality to humiliate men who had hurt me because being above them felt safer than ever being underneath them again. I’ve realized that underneath all of this is a wound around autonomy and subordination.
I’m now developing a very emotionally and sexually intimate relationship with a cis man. He isn’t reproducing a lot of the behaviors that harmed me in previous relationships. He respects my boundaries, doesn’t claim ownership over me, and has generally responded compassionately when I’ve disclosed experiences of sexual violence. And yet being this vulnerable with a cis man has brought all of this stuff roaring back.
Particularly, I struggle with the fact that he has certain forms of male privilege that I don’t. There are things I have to think about that he generally doesn’t have to think about in the same embodied way: whether a male sexual partner might disregard my consent; what happens if I become pregnant somewhere reproductive choices are legally restricted; whether laws affecting healthcare I rely on will change; having my pleasure come secondary to men’s (if even considered at all); and constantly encountering cultural messages that sexual relationships involving men/penises are somehow more legitimate than sexual relationships that don’t.
I know intellectually that privilege is not superiority. I understand the argument perfectly well: someone receiving greater structural power or protection does not mean they are more valuable, more human, more legitimate, or entitled to rule somebody with less structural power. But emotionally, I cannot seem to internalize it.
My nervous system seems to translate:
He has freedoms I don’t → he has more power → I’m underneath him → I’m inferior → I’m unsafe.
And then I feel an impulse to find some way that I have power over him so that we’re “equal” again. I don’t want to live like that anymore.
I don’t want equality to mean “I need enough leverage to hurt you back.” I don’t want to compete with men sexually. I don’t want to need superiority in order to feel safe. And I especially don’t want to reproduce domination in a relationship with someone who isn’t actually trying to dominate me.
I want to be able to say:
“Yes, society gives you privileges it doesn’t give me. That is unjust. And you are still not above me.”
But I don’t know how to make that something I feel, rather than merely something I can intellectually defend.
There’s also grief underneath this. I’m beginning to realize that I’m not actually grieving that other people had particular sexual experiences I didn’t have. I’m grieving that they seemed to have a kind of freedom and bodily self-determination that I didn’t consistently get to experience in my life because of the system I am in.
I’m even realizing that I may have internalized heteronormativity in how I tell my own sexual history. I’ve minimized early romantic/sexual experiences involving girls while disproportionately treating experiences involving boys/men (and particularly PIV) as developmental milestones. I’m starting to question how much of my own biography I’ve unconsciously organized around penis and male centered definitions of sexuality.
So I think my actual question is:
How do you grieve being denied autonomy without spending the rest of your life trying to compensate for it through trying to reverse the hierarchy by becoming the “dominator” yourself?
And, especially for people who have experienced gendered violence or coercive control:
How did you learn to have intimate relationships with people who possess structural privileges you don’t have without experiencing their privilege as evidence that you are subordinate to them?
I’m particularly interested in perspectives that can hold both things at once: that structural gender inequality is real and that interpersonal relationships don’t have to reproduce that hierarchy.
I’m not looking to be convinced that patriarchy doesn’t exist or that “everyone has different challenges.” I already understand that patriarchy can harm cis men too. What I’m struggling with is how to emotionally experience myself as an equal while living within a system that materially does not treat us as equals.
I grew up internalizing a hierarchy where men were positioned as sexually superior to me. Some of that came from broader cultural patriarchal messages, but some of it was reinforced through my actual relationships and experiences with men. I experienced control over my sexuality by my father growing up, and throughout my life I’ve had men pressure me, violate sexual boundaries, or make sexual decisions involving my body that I didn’t consent to. I’ve also had men invalidate sexual experiences I had that didn’t involve PIV and treat PIV as the thing that made someone legitimately sexually experienced, even though it didn’t do much for me. And men reinforced the idea that my queerness was foul and not legitimate.
I think I responded to all of that by trying to reverse the hierarchy rather than dismantling it within me. So sexual experience became power to me. Being desired became power. Having more partners became power. Being able to replace someone quickly after rejection became power. Having experiences other men hadn’t had became power. At times I deliberately used my sexuality to humiliate men who had hurt me because being above them felt safer than ever being underneath them again. I’ve realized that underneath all of this is a wound around autonomy and subordination.
I’m now developing a very emotionally and sexually intimate relationship with a cis man. He isn’t reproducing a lot of the behaviors that harmed me in previous relationships. He respects my boundaries, doesn’t claim ownership over me, and has generally responded compassionately when I’ve disclosed experiences of sexual violence. And yet being this vulnerable with a cis man has brought all of this stuff roaring back.
Particularly, I struggle with the fact that he has certain forms of male privilege that I don’t. There are things I have to think about that he generally doesn’t have to think about in the same embodied way: whether a male sexual partner might disregard my consent; what happens if I become pregnant somewhere reproductive choices are legally restricted; whether laws affecting healthcare I rely on will change; having my pleasure come secondary to men’s (if even considered at all); and constantly encountering cultural messages that sexual relationships involving men/penises are somehow more legitimate than sexual relationships that don’t.
I know intellectually that privilege is not superiority. I understand the argument perfectly well: someone receiving greater structural power or protection does not mean they are more valuable, more human, more legitimate, or entitled to rule somebody with less structural power. But emotionally, I cannot seem to internalize it.
My nervous system seems to translate:
He has freedoms I don’t → he has more power → I’m underneath him → I’m inferior → I’m unsafe.
And then I feel an impulse to find some way that I have power over him so that we’re “equal” again. I don’t want to live like that anymore.
I don’t want equality to mean “I need enough leverage to hurt you back.” I don’t want to compete with men sexually. I don’t want to need superiority in order to feel safe. And I especially don’t want to reproduce domination in a relationship with someone who isn’t actually trying to dominate me.
I want to be able to say:
“Yes, society gives you privileges it doesn’t give me. That is unjust. And you are still not above me.”
But I don’t know how to make that something I feel, rather than merely something I can intellectually defend.
There’s also grief underneath this. I’m beginning to realize that I’m not actually grieving that other people had particular sexual experiences I didn’t have. I’m grieving that they seemed to have a kind of freedom and bodily self-determination that I didn’t consistently get to experience in my life because of the system I am in.
I’m even realizing that I may have internalized heteronormativity in how I tell my own sexual history. I’ve minimized early romantic/sexual experiences involving girls while disproportionately treating experiences involving boys/men (and particularly PIV) as developmental milestones. I’m starting to question how much of my own biography I’ve unconsciously organized around penis and male centered definitions of sexuality.
So I think my actual question is:
How do you grieve being denied autonomy without spending the rest of your life trying to compensate for it through trying to reverse the hierarchy by becoming the “dominator” yourself?
And, especially for people who have experienced gendered violence or coercive control:
How did you learn to have intimate relationships with people who possess structural privileges you don’t have without experiencing their privilege as evidence that you are subordinate to them?
I’m particularly interested in perspectives that can hold both things at once: that structural gender inequality is real and that interpersonal relationships don’t have to reproduce that hierarchy.
I’m not looking to be convinced that patriarchy doesn’t exist or that “everyone has different challenges.” I already understand that patriarchy can harm cis men too. What I’m struggling with is how to emotionally experience myself as an equal while living within a system that materially does not treat us as equals.